My Great Awakening

[davg2000]

(01-09-2019 06:47 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(01-08-2019 08:41 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Was it safer to stay a safe distance from discussing his personal views? Can't afford to lose votes...

The following story has no footnote, and it may well be apocryphal. In 1846 Lincoln was running for Congress against a frontier preacher named Peter Cartwright. The story is from a book entitled Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents by Franklin Steiner:

"A story is told of Mr. Cartwright's holding a revival meeting while the campaign was in progress, during which Lincoln stepped into one of his meetings. When Cartwright asked the audience, "Will all who want to go to heaven stand up?" all arose except Lincoln. When he asked, "Now, will all who want to go to hell stand up?" Lincoln still remained in his seat. Mr. Cartwright then said, "All have stood up for one place or the other except Mr. Lincoln, and we would like to know where he expects to go." Lincoln arose and quietly said, "I am going to Congress," and there he went."

This was the campaign in which Cartwright attempted to make Lincoln's religion or lack of it an issue in the campaign. Lincoln responded by issuing his "Handbill Replying to Charges of Infidelity." The text of this is here:

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libra...nfidelity/

Lincoln’s religion was complicated, and I think it’s something of a stretch to call him Christian. Although IMO there was never much doubt that Lincoln believed in some kind of spiritual higher power, except maybe for Peter Cartwright, it was probably something of an open secret at least in Springfield that Lincoln wasn’t Christian in any current meaning of the word. Herndon surely didn’t think so.

In 1846 in response to a “whispering campaign” that Lincoln thought his opponent for Congress, Peter Cartwright, had started, Lincoln published the “Handbill Replying to Charges of Infidelity.” http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libra...fidelity/. In this he says that that he had “never denied the truth of the Scriptures” and “had never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or any denomination of Christians in particular.” But he also says that he used to try to argue, in small groups, the truth of the Doctrine of Necessity, which Lincoln says states that “the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control.” (We understand today that this is a belief in fatalism, or determinism.) Lincoln then says that he hasn’t made this argument for over five years and that he has “always heard this same opinion to be held by several of the Christian denominations.” One who believes in the Doctrine of Necessity denies the existence of free will, and Cartwright would certainly have viewed this position as non-Christian or “infidel.” One author who has treated Lincoln’s opposition to free will is Allen Guelzo: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/262986...w=fulltext

[RJNorton]

I thought I'd mention an article written by Ed Steers. Ed wrote "A Question of Faith: Was Lincoln a Christian?" which was published in the September 1999 edition of North and South magazine (Volume 2, Number 7). Essentially Dr. Steers argues that Lincoln had a very strong faith although he probably was not a Christian in the strict 19th century sense of the term.